As I visit and observe what I call the “existential festivals” – events like Burning Man, SXSW, TED, Sundance, Bonnaroo, and ArtPrize, for example – I ask myself, “What are people really trying to accomplish here – besides just having fun?”
The answer I’ve come away with – after quite a bit of pondering – is that people are trying to use these events to help the...
It would seem that we now find ourselves and our world in the very center of one of those quickening maelstroms of time that lead to some sort of inconceivable singularity — a point where the pulse quickens so fast that the only way out is to awaken to some other consciousness of reality. It all started around 1760, and will end somewhere around 2050. What we are talking about is the accelerating progression of er...
Each year businesses spend an aggregate of $40B on market research. This is largely in an effort to mine new insights about customers' unmet needs, or to test out new ideas to see if a large enough segment of their customers (or of the general population) will react positively to them.
Businesses have begun to realize however that rather than — or in some cases, in addition to — spending millions each y...
I have been a student of innovation for more years now than I care to count. One of the things that has always made innovation so enjoyable to me is the fact that every business discipline seems to believe they 'own' innovation, a premise from which they have devised their particular flavor of innovation – one that in each case mirrors their unique perspectives on business. I would like to take us on a tour of the...
In our work with business leaders around the world, we spend a lot of time talking about the organizational philosophies and cultures needed to guide and nurture innovation in their business. One of the key questions we are often asked is, 'how can we drive engagement and ownership within and across our business for these new things we are trying to do?'
The answer I consistently come back to — and the one thing...
It appears a new group of individuals are beginning to impact a variety of industries, perhaps more than any previous generation. Anthony Mills, founder and CEO of Legacy Innovation Group, joins Tim Muma to talk about the "Innovation Generation" and what they're bringing to the workforce. Anthony discusses the personality traits and skills this new breed utilizes, as well as what they expect from their working experiences....
Once upon a time, in the heyday of the Industrial Age, a young marketing, design, or engineering student would graduate from college and go to work for a large corporation, slowly melding into the steady, rhythmic din of bureaucratically-managed, organizationally-structured execution work in product development. And they were just peachy keen happy with that. They got to be a part of the steady execution of the company’s sl...
In the ancient world, there were three roles of influence that tended to engage one another… the Prophets, the Priests, and the Kings. These three danced a tenuous dance… at times at great odds with one another, often over accountability matters, and at times in aid of one another. One might say that it was a love / hate relationship… one that at times ended with the Prophets losing their heads to the Kings (and the Priests...